Performance Center coach Kendo Kashin was one of many WWE workers who lost their jobs this week, and he opened up about the experience to Tokyo Sports.
Kashin, whose wrestling accomplishments include work for New Japan and All Japan Pro Wrestling, started working at the PC in August 2019. Now he says he “can’t go back to Japan” after losing his job, probably because of the impact on his work visa. He told Tokyo Sports that he thinks the conditions that caused the staff cuts will affect WWE’s business ventures in Japan, which included plans to launch a third NXT brand there in 2020.
Kashin also said that he thinks he lost his job because of a previous interview he did with Tokyo Sports that ran the week before the layoffs in which he shared how Orlando was dealing with COVID-19. In the piece, he mentioned how getting coronavirus would impact him financially because he does not have health insurance, and stated that he thought a culture of wearing masks when sick and hand-washing would have decreased the spread of the virus.
Kashin also observed to Tokyo Sports that the stressful environment was causing some social issues in Orlando, mentioning that he was seeing more car crashes and that he witnessed a man being falsely arrested for breaking a window and treated roughly by the police. But he added, mentioning the “Florida man” phenomenon, that there was always a lot of weird behavior in the area, including people not using their turn signals.
The masked wrestler also shared what working life was like for Performance Center staff at the time, saying he was basically on vacation seven days a week except for one video call, which he missed.
